The RIG Maritime Collection

One day, sometime in the future, Independence will be complete and offering trips around the bay to school groups, and the general public.   So what will we do with Independence's womb - the boathouse?

The favourite plan is to convert the boathouse into a museum to show off the history of American River; the process through which we went in constructing Independence; and history of matters maritime on Kangaroo Island  and maybe further afield.

Whilst our knowledgeable guides enjoy talking to visitors about what RIG is doing and why we are doing it, we do not want to miss the opportunity of obtaining collectables which are relevant to our project.

To this end, one of RIG's volunteers has already commenced the process of recording the history of various artefacts, photographs, articles and so on.  Some of these items are held in storage at RIG but more of them live in cyberspace and will only emerge when space permits.  However, the fact that they are not physically accessible is, these days, of little matter as many of them can be presented remotely.

The aims of the RIG Maritime Collection are:

· to preserve our maritime heritage: even in the event of a fire the online collection will survive.
· to educate our community, young and old, in maritime culture: its skills, crafts, stories and art.
· to recognise and encourage the generosity of donors, and, over all,
· to inform our community and the wider world of American River’s rich maritime heritage.

There is no need to log in. Instructions on how to use and search the RIG Maritime Collection are in the Curator’s report for August 2021.

A rolling 12 months worth of monthly reports by the curator of the RIG Collection are recorded here. They record the development of the online RIG Collection from inception, and related endeavours. Before the Collection was recorded online it existed in a cupboard, in private homes and on the RIG Boathouse walls. In the event of a fire the online collection unlike the physical collection will survive, to educate the curious, to reward the donors, and to remind us of American River’s maritime heritage.

The RIG Collection is available to the public at https://ehive.com/collections/200519/the-rebuild-independence-grouprig-collection

There is no need to log in. Instructions on how to use/search the RIG Collection are in the Curator’s report for August 2021.

The Collection is also available in the Australian National Library Collection, Trove at
https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/images?keyword=nuc%3ASRIG